More on the New News Ecology
Reporter: Jane Ellen Stevens
Journalism That Matters met for a very brief 1.5 days, June 30-July 1 at Media Giraffe in Amherst, MA. The cyber-confab gathered a few more people on its journey into the new news ecology, one of the break-out group topics.
One of the new JTM members – Ventura County Star editor Joe Howry – volunteered his news organization to the group of about 15 people as a jumping-off point for exploring journalists, community and revenue.
Ventura County comprises six major communities (Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Moorpark) with 800,000 people total. The county sits on the California coast, 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Median income is high — $80,000. Significant Latino, Filipino and Vietnamese communities live in the county. It’s mostly very conservative, with a strict growth-restriction policy in place that’s enabled it to hold onto its agriculture, which has strawberries as its largest commodity. It also has a deep-water port, and a military base (Pt. Hueneme).
The Ventura County Star, a Scripps paper, publishes six editions daily. Competing weekly papers are published in several communities, including Ojai, Santa Paula, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, and Simi Valley.
We began with a basic approach – that a local news organization provides a sense of community. And we planned to address these three areas: 1. Community participation in the news organization’s news and information 2. Staff (Who is? What skills have? What cover? How do they work?) 3. Goods & services access and information as a revenue source
Community Many communities exist in Ventura, and are organized around everything, including geography, ethnic groups, people who hate pot holes, and people who love animals. People belong to many different communities. People change communities. We settled on this question: What is the baseline information needed in community? What does a news organization provide?
It’s important to give communities the tools to facilitate collaborative reporting. The news organization can develop community tools, from Public Insight Journalism to local blog pages (think MySpace for Ventura County). They can also rely on citizen journalists to report the basics. (Think About.com for Ventura County.)
Staff As a news organization develops a new news ecology, the mid-level editors will be the most difficult group to embrace change. That’s because their main job is to feed the beast of print. Solutions that were provided by the group include: Building in flex time to think, to create new news ecology Top-level managers encourage mid-level editors that it’s OK to move out of rut Let them experiment with the Web platform, which allows more flexibility Encourage them to think Web first, print second Encourage them to rethink print product; it’s now secondary
The reporters also have to redefine their roles. At present, they feel like they’re a widget in a news factory instead of a contributor to their communities. The roles of the reporter in the new news ecology: Move from hit-and-run reporting to facilitating solutions Examine their own life balance Local reporting becomes a glamor job instead of an entry-level position
The role and value of journalist in the new news ecology: Journalist as manager of information from citizens Journalist as organizer of information (into Web shells) Journalists as watchdog Journalists as owner, not employee Journalists help community distinguish between sifted and unsifted information Journalists have expertise – they know community, topic, etc., and have access Journalists = skill, savvy, BS detector, independent
Traditional journalists are regarded as loners, they’re younger and have no family, they don’t engage in the community, they have no civic involvement or memory. We wanted that to change.
We had no time remaining to address the last part of community: goods & services access and information. We ended with these questions and conclusions:
— Why do people still need a newsPAPER? — Journalists help people connect with community and democracy. — What would happen if you fired political reporter? — What would happen if you fired the city hall reporter? — What happens if journalists give up a controversy-only approach? What if they facilitated solutions? — What happens when you think of journalists as citizens?